Dr Erna Tresnaningsih Suharsa from the Indonesian Ministry of Health said that Vietnam has built a rock solid programme in combating bird flu within the country.

The Indonesian health expert made the remark on the sidelines of an APEC health seminar being held to review and build an APEC plan on the fight against the virus, in Hanoi, from May 7-8.

Dr Suharsa said that Vietnam has showed a strong commitment from the central to grassroots levels to prevent bird flu outbreaks and lamented the fact that her own country found it more difficult to accomplish these tasks, “Unfortunately this is not easy to do in Indonesia,” she said.

Michael Iademarco, Health Attaché of the US Embassy in Vietnam, also praised Vietnam for exhibiting exceptionally strong leadership in the fight.

“There are many factors for Vietnam’s continued success, one of the most important ones is the open and transparent way with communications and sharing of information and samples that have led to a more effective and continually improving approach,” he said.

The American expert said that Vietnam is not afraid to look at the problem, share its successes, problems and challenges and experiment with new methods in keeping the number of outbreaks down.

“Vietnam is a very important leader in the region for taking this approach, recognising that bird flu affects its own community, its own economy and public, but also recognising that it also affects other regional countries, and in the case of preventing a potentially global pandemic, its playing a very co-operative, strong leadership role in fighting bird flu right now,” Iademarco added.

Dr Suharsa pointed to Vietnam's measures in combating bird flu such as vaccination, early detection and response, the establishment of an avian influenza hotline and an online reporting system to assist in pathogenic avian influenza information management.

“I really want to learn more about this reporting system, I would love to be able to take it back home and apply it in Indonesia,” she said.

Speaking on the challenges the country faces, Iademarco warned that, although Vietnam has not reported any new human bird flu cases in over one year, health officials in the country must stay on high alert to prevent the disease.

“We must invest in human resources, build better surveillance, public health and emergency responses and be prepared for not just bird flu but also other infectious diseases,” Michael said. (VNA)